Those Damn Scanrans
by WildMagic
Summary: Alanna is riding on a mission for Jon and comes across a "haunted" feif. When they return to inspect they are awaited by an army of immortals. Will they survive?


1 Those Damn Scanrans  
  
Chapter One: The Haunted Fief  
  
  
  
Alanna, the King's champion also known as the Lioness, rode through the forest thinking hard. She couldn't wait to get home to Corus, the capital of Tortall, but by the looks of it she would have to spend the night in either the woods or some fief or wayside house. Darkmoon, her gold horse with a black mane and tail, was starting to get nervous, but she coaxed him into going. She then focused her thoughts back on home.  
  
After a little more riding, Darkmoon stopped completely. After Alanna looked him over, she found he was covered in sweat and very nervous. As far as she could tell there was nothing to be afraid of, but Alanna paid attention when her horse got scared and drew her sword just in case. She also looked inside herself to double-check her Gift was ready to be used. She was glad to see that the little spring of violet fire was as full as ever.  
  
"I should have brought Daine," muttered Alanna. She looked around and saw, out of the corner of her eye, a lone fief deep in the woods.  
  
"Now what is a fief doing in there?" thought Alanna. "Wouldn't I know about it? Oh well, it's a place to spend the night. I'll bring this up with Jon when I get to Corus."  
  
Jonathan was king of Tortall. He was also one of Alanna's best friends. They had been through a lot together, including killing Duke Roger of Conte, Jon's uncle, and defeating the Ysindir in the Black City in the Great Southern Desert, in the south of Tortall. There was nothing Alanna could do to get Darkmoon any closer to the fief, so she tethered him to a tree, unsaddled him, brushed him, and threw a blanket over him. She then took the saddle and walked towards the castle.  
  
When she reached the castle, she walked through the battlements and was surprised to see that there were no guards.  
  
"Now that's odd," muttered Alanna, "you'd think a fief this far into the woods would be afraid of bandits."  
  
She walked into the castle to find it deserted. She then understood why there were no guards. Alanna shrugged and walked inside; at least it was protection from the coming storm. Inside she called upon her magic to light the room she was in. It was a large hall with many rooms branching off. She walked into the first room and found herself in a kitchen. Alanna looked around and saw that there were at least a couple of inches of dust on everything. She opened the icebox and found it was packed with food that had to be very old considering how much dust was on everything else in the kitchen. Alanna closed the icebox and walked on into the next room. It was a dining room. Everything here, too, was covered in dust. Alanna kept walking and after a while found one of the sitting rooms. All the furniture was broken, as it was in the rest of the house. Alanna tossed some violet fire into the fireplace and ate some cold ham and cheese from her saddlebag. She took her bedroll out of her saddlebag and lay down to sleep. She slept horribly, tossing and turning all night.  
  
Somewhere around two o'clock in the morning, she heard a loud crash and sat up, grabbing her sword in the same movement. She stood and whirled to face the door. There in the doorway stood a Coldfang, a huge immortal lizard- like creature that chased robbers and bandits. A couple years ago Daine had had to fight a Coldfang. The thing nearly killed her.  
  
If it hadn't been for Tkaa, she'd be dead. If she had been dead, they never would have been able to defeat Emperor Ozorne in the Immortals War, as people chose to call it. Alanna had no idea how she was going to defeat him; he was armored so heavily with scales that practically nothing could pierce them. She stepped back against the wall and felt a doorknob. Alanna opened the door and ran out. To her relief it was a door to the outdoor practice yards, bathhouses, gardens, and such. She ran as hard as she could to Darkmoon, the Coldfang in hot pursuit. She jumped on Darkmoon's back and rode bareback all the way back to Corus, the coldfang still behind her.  
  
When she reached Corus it was about mid-morning. She shouted to Tkaa, the basilisk. Tkaa appeared next to her and immediately saw the problem. Instantly the coldfang turned to stone.  
  
"Thanks Tkaa," said Alanna." You saved my life."  
  
"Your welcome," said Tkaa in his whispery voice.  
  
Just then a group of guards accompanied by Jon, Thayet, Numair, and Daine came running. They also noticed the coldfang immediately. They all stopped and gaped. Skysong, the pale-blue dragon nicknamed Kitten who had been adopted by Daine when Kitten's mother died fighting for Tortall, came through the crowd to stand next to Tkaa. She burst into rapid dragon-talk with Tkaa, who understood three thousand languages.  
  
They talked for a while and then Tkaa translated what she had said. "She wants to know what it was doing here," he said nodding at the Coldfang. "She also wants to know where it came from and I, of course, don't know. Would you please tell her?"  
  
"Yes, please do, Alanna," Jon said.  
  
"I was riding home after going to deal with a problem a town had with an ogre. You sent me Jon," Jon nodded and Alanna continued. "When I had dealt with it, I was coming back here. I got caught in the forest and saw a fief. It was late so I went inside. It was deserted and in a bad state of disrepair."  
  
"Wait," interrupted Jon, "we don't have any deserted fiefs!"  
  
"Just let me finish! Alright, I was sleeping and in the middle of the night it came after me. I've been riding to get here ever since."  
  
"I think we should check this out," said Numair.  
  
"Exactly what I was thinking," said Jon.  
  
"I'll go to help with anymore immortals," said Daine.  
  
"Will we need any Riders?" asked Thayet.  
  
"I doubt it," said Jon, "we should probably do this with as few people as possible."  
  
"I agree. Are we all going to go? That should be enough," said Numair, "with mine and Alanna's Gift, we should be fine. Plus Daine's wild magic, we'll be more than fine." Wild magic is exactly what it sounds like, wild magic. It cannot be fully controlled and with this Daine can speak to animals. This skill proved very useful during the War.  
  
"I'll go, you stay," Jon said to Thayet. "One of us needs to stay incase something happens and I could really use an adventure. I'm bored out of my mind here!"  
  
"Alright dear. We had better prepare and get you guys out of here as soon as possible," said Thayet.  
  
"Wait," said Alanna. "You should probably stay for Midwinter."  
  
"You're right," said Jon. "Alright then, we'll leave right after Midwinter, no later. I want this settled."  
  
Their little band walked into the palace to get ready for the banquet that night, since it was the first day of Midwinter.  
  
The group broke up, Daine and Numair, followed closely by Kitten going to their room, Jon and Thayet back to the royal suite, Tkaa to the pages wing, and Alanna to her state rooms in the palace. When she got there, she was met by three small explosions. She almost fell over in shock. She looked up and there sat Baron George of Pirate's Swoop, her husband.  
  
"We decided to come for Midwinter," said George. Then he stood and laughed while Alanna knelt to return her children's hugs. Her eldest, Thom, whose hair was redder than his mothers but had his fathers' hazel- green eyes, as opposed to his mothers' violet, was twelve. The two younger ones, the twins, both blonde, were 9.  
  
"Well it's a great welcome you've given me, laddybuck," said Alanna, trying to imitate her husbands speech, "you allow me to be attacked by barbarians and then stand there and laugh!"  
  
"Excuse me," George said gravely, plucking the twins from Alanna's arms. He then dipped her into a long kiss. The children clapped. When they stood, Alanna explained what had happened. George was shocked.  
  
"Would you like me to go with you?" he asked, concerned.  
  
"What about the children?" asked Alanna.  
  
"We have Maude," replied George.  
  
"I don't know. We can discuss this at the banquet, we'll be sitting at Jon's table."  
  
"The banquet!" exclaimed George, "I totally forgot!"  
  
"Well change now then," said Alanna, "I have to anyway."  
  
The two went off to change, leaving the children to play. Alanna donned a violet silk gown with a black surcoat. George had on a gray tunic over black shirt and hose.  
  
When they were done changing, they left the kids in Maude's care and went to the banquet. The king and queen both looked stunning, the Jon in royal blue over black shirt and hose, the Thayet in a scarlet gown with white surcoat. Daine was at their table in a twilight blue gown with a gold surcoat. Sitting beside her was Numair in black tunic over white shirt and hose. Also, Kitten was there, as usually, on a stool next to Daine. Buri, the commander-in-chief of the Queen's Riders, was there as well in a green gown with an orange surcoat. Sir Lord Raoul of Goldenlake and Mallory's Peak, her husband, was there with her in Goldenlake's green-and-gold tunic, shirt, and hose. Duke Garth of Naxen was there, too, with his wife Cytheria. Alanna concluded that Gary and Raoul had already been told about the mysterious fief and the coldfang.  
  
The banquet passed uneventfully. After the banquet they were led into a ballroom where there was dancing and music. In the ballroom, Alanna was introduced to the ambassador from the Copper Isles, islands off the coast of Tortall. Alanna had been introduced before to people who believed that she had cheated to get her shield, but this ambassador was just plain awful. He criticized her throughout the ball and she tried not to notice him, which was hard enough. But when he started to criticize Jon and Thayet and how they ran their country, about how they let ladies fight, Alanna lost her temper. She stomped over to the ambassador and slapped him across the face. The ambassador grew red with fury, "I accept this challenge," he said, "Tomorrow on the practice courts, you and I shall have our duel." So saying he strode off with his wife in his wake.  
  
"Now why did you have to go and pick a fight with the ambassador?" asked Jon.  
  
"You heard what he was saying!" said Alanna hotly; "It was enough to criticize me without bringing you into it!"  
  
The next day, Alanna went down to the practice courts. When she arrived, the ambassador was already there, stretching. Spectators were starting to arrive. The king and queen were there as well. As soon as Alanna was stretched out, she and the ambassador met in the center of the court. They bowed to the king and each other. Then they faced off. They circled each other, daring each other to strike. Immediately the ambassador began insulting her mother, her work, her king, everything. But Alanna would win at a game of patience, for she was never one for insulting and because she never answered back the ambassador got very angry. He then lunged at her and began to pommel her with strikes, each of which she blocked. After a while, though, she began to get angry herself. The Lioness was known for her temper and no one wanted to be around her when she got angry. She sliced up with a butterfly cut and, when he blocked it, instantly went into the second strike of the attack. She did some lunges and then went into the crescent strike. Her knights' training took over and she went through the rest of the fight without even having to think. Before she knew it the ambassadors sword was in the air and Alanna caught it with her free hand. That proved to everyone, including the ambassador, that women could fight, just like men.  
  
The rest of the week passed much the same with no surprises.  
  
The day that they were supposed to leave, they all awoke at dawn so as to be at the fief by nightfall. Darkmoon as well as Jon's Darkness, Daine's Cloud, Numair's Spots, and George's horse had been saddled by the hostlers. Kitten was in Daine's special pouch for her. When everyone was ready to go, the group walked out into the town of Corus.  
  
By the time they left Corus the grumpiness from waking up so early had worn off and the little group was joking and talking. They stopped for lunch and then kept moving. By mid-afternoon they were pretty deep into the forest. When they reached the same place as before where Darkmoon stopped, all the horses stopped. Numair tested the area around them for magic and couldn't find a trace except for the groups. Everyone in the group had the Gift in some form or another. Daine couldn't find anything else out from the horses except that they were scared out of their minds. She couldn't coax them to go another step, so they tethered the horses. They unsaddled, groomed, and put blankets over them.  
  
Kitten whistled and started to walk toward the castle. She obviously wanted everyone to follow her. So they all followed Kitten to the door and when she opened it, they all gasped. Stretched out before them was a place of utter magnificence.  
  
"I thought you said it was in a terrible state of disrepair," muttered Numair.  
  
"It was," replied Alanna.  
  
"Then how did it get to be like this?" asked Jon, "are you sure this is the place?"  
  
"Yes of course she's sure," said George exasperated, "how many fiefs do you think there are in these woods? And wouldn't you know about them?"  
  
"You're right," sighed Jon, "lets look around."  
  
Daine and Kitten went to explore the upstairs. George and Numair went to explore the ground floor and basements. Alanna and Jon took the outside areas, which include stables, practice courts, gardens, and everything else outside.  
  
Alanna and Jon found nothing in the bathhouses, stables, or gardens. They were communicating through little balls of light in their hands. George and Numair found nothing either. Daine and Kitten had the same luck. They all met together at the practice yards to confer. They talked about going to sleep and checking it more thoroughly in the morning. When they walked through the dining room, golden plates piled high with food appeared at the seven seats around the table plus the stool next to one of them.  
  
"Don't touch any of it," said Alanna, whose ember necklace was glowing. It had warned her that the food was dangerous. Daine's silver claw necklace, a gift from the badger god, also glowed.  
  
They kept on walking into the sitting room where Alanna had slept before to find it full of lavish couches and armchairs, all soft and fluffy as could be. They sat down and pulled their blankets out of their saddlebags. They all slept comfortably until about two o'clock in the morning, the same time when Alanna had woken up to the coldfang, only this time they woke up to Daine shouting, "Stormwings! Hurroks! Killer unicorns and centaurs! They're all here NOW! Wake up! Get your weapons!"  
  
Stormwings are immortals that had a human head and chest with the wings and claws of a bird. The claws and feathers, though, were made of steal. Hurroks are horses with wings and they too had claws. The claws were the silver of an immortal. Centaurs are horses with a human chest and head. Immortals are not really the right words for them because they can die. Unless they are killed or they have an accident, though, they live forever, immune to disease and death.  
  
They were all up instantly, grabbing swords, daggers, bows, any weapons they had. Numair kept only a small dagger because he would use magic to fight. Alanna, too, as well as the king, also only had swords since they would use their Gifts too. When they were all armed they ran into the practice yards to be met by an enormous herd of immortals. The fighting started immediately, Daine with a bow and Jon and Alanna with magic picking off stormwings and hurroks from the air. They centaurs and unicorns were taken care of by George, Numair, and Kitten. Suddenly Kitten whistled loudly. Almost instantly Tkaa appeared and began to turn things to stone. Alanna soon stopped picking off things in the air and began to fight with Lightning, her sword. Daine called on the animals to help with her magic. Birds and bats took to the sky and started to kill or wound stormwings, pecking eyes and scratching. Wolves, bears, foxes, weasels, and all the other land animals attacked the unicorns and centaurs. The battle began to get bloody, animals and immortals dying, the humans getting hurt. Daine continued to shoot, but suddenly a centaur hit her from behind, knocking her over. He raised his sword to kill her, but one of the foxes jumped onto her and blocked the blow. Daine reached into her quiver and pulled out an arrow. She stabbed the centaur continually until he died, and she rolled out from under him before he crushed her. She tried to stand and realized the centaur had fallen on her leg when he had died. She screamed to Alanna who came running to heal her. Tkaa protected them from anything while Alanna worked.  
  
They continued to slaughter the immortals just as the immortals continued to slaughter the animals and wound the humans. Finally, late into the next night after continuous fighting, the immortals fled. The humans, who were exhausted, collapsed and slept.  
  
Alanna, Jon, and Numair were the last to awaken. They had used up almost all their magic and needed the sleep. When Daine and George, who awakened first, woke up, the were lying in the middle of the forest, not in the practice yards of a castle where they had collapsed.  
  
They waited to the others to wake up and passed the time by looking for the castle. They couldn't find it within a two-mile radius (they had taken their horses, who were no longer spooked). When they got back to camp, Tkaa and Kitten were up.  
  
They all waited for Numair, Jon, and Alanna to wake up and decided to cook breakfast (or an early dinner since it was around dinner time). When it was done cooking they all ate and in the middle of the meal the others woke up. They all waited for Alanna, Numair, and Jon to finish and then proceeded to saddle the horses. Though George and Daine were unable to find the castle, all of their belongings were still there.  
  
When the horses were saddled, the group rode out of the forest silently. They were all thinking about the fight. When they exited the forest they started to talk about what had happened. They agreed that this should not reach the public, we already had enough problems, but that our families and the pages and squires should know about it. When we rode into the palace, Thayet and the young princes and princesses, ran to meet their Jon. Thom and the twins, followed closely by Maude, ran to meet Alanna and George. Also came Sir Myles, Alanna's adoptive father, and Eleni, Myles' wife and George's mother.  
  
"We were so worried," sobbed Thayet, she was so relieved to see them, "you were gone for a week and we got really worried. We thought you were dead!"  
  
When the children were done greeting their parents, they turned on Daine. She was bombarded with hugs and kisses from them all. She grinned happily and returned them. Kitten whistled and chirped happily from the ground where she stood next to Tkaa. When the reunion was over, everyone turned and walked their separate directions. The guards closed the gates behind them and a new war, a Scanran war, had begun. 


End file.
